by Richard Orr
“I haven’t seen anything yet, what are you talking about? Do you know what happened?” Jonigan was confused. There was no way for the old woman to know what was going on.
“You better bring me with you. I think you’re going to need my help to see this in the right way.” She stood silently for a few moments appraising Jonigan. “I think, Commander, you may not know it yet, but you will be able to see some new things tonight.”
“I’m sorry doctor, this is all interesting and I’d like to talk more about it with you, but one of the members of your expedition was just killed. I need to get over to his tent.”
“Yes, I know, I felt it, that’s why I’m going to come with you. Something very not normal has happened here and I’m afraid that without me you won’t see it.” Dr. Baxter reached out and took Jonigan by the elbow. “Come along young man, you have some things to learn tonight.”
Jonigan looked over at the strange little old woman, skepticism filled his eyes as she guided him away from her tent and around the corner. What was the old woman talking about?
Not too far from the old woman’s tent Jonigan found his destination, marked by the group of soldiers standing just outside the entrance. A few large lights had been brought in to illuminate the tent.
Immediately, Jonigan could see what Thorsen had been talking about. Blood was everywhere, on the cot, covering the table on the other side of the tent and all over the interior walls. Some of the clumps on the floor looked like they might be parts of a human body, severely disfigured and maimed.
“No one saw anything?” Jonigan asked, almost to himself, as if questioning the reality of what he had heard. How could it have not been seen by anyone?
“It didn’t want to be seen.”
“What?” Jonigan turned to face the old lady as she spoke. “How do you know that?”
“By listening, my boy. There are things that some people just don’t hear and some things that some people just can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have the talent, my boy, others don’t. You just don’t know how to listen yet.”
“I didn’t know I needed to listen to anything, it seems pretty clear by the evidence present here that something horrible happened.”
“Yes, but don’t you want to know what did it?”
“Sure, but I don’t know how I’m going to find that out. No one heard or saw anything until after the attack was over.”
“What if I told you there was a way for you to see it?”
“How? I’ve got to be honest here, you’re sounding a little crazy.”
“Oh, trust me, my boy, I may look crazy and I probably am crazy, but I can teach you a few things. You may not realize it, but humans aren’t a finished product. Going to the stars has opened up a few new and interesting things for us to understand. If you can have enough patience, I’ll show you.” She seemed smugly confident that she could show the Commander a thing or two.
Jonigan felt a deep scepticism about what the old woman was saying. Except, he had been in space long enough that he had seen a few things that he found almost impossible to explain.
“Here, sit down on the floor, preferably not on anyone’s parts, and calm yourself.”
Jonigan sat in a small area of the floor devoid of gore, crossing his legs on the ground in front of himself. He rested his hands on his knees and waited for the good Doctor, who knelt down in front of his legs, only a few inches away. She reached out and took his hands in hers. Her hands were soft and dry, his clammy and sweaty. Why was he letting her do this anyway?
“Okay, first, you need to clear your mind. Stop thinking. We humans get so caught up in our thoughts that we miss a lot of the world around us. We don’t realize that we’ve started swimming in the deep end of the pool.”
Thoughts were roaring their way through Jonigan’s mind, he had to figure out what was going on before someone else was hurt or killed. What was he doing giving this old woman so much of his time? “Can we hurry?”
“Be patient, you’re going to need this where we are going. Now, calm yourself and focus on the now. Focus on the world around you. Focus on this moment.”
“Okay.” Jonigan decided to try and do exactly what Dr. Baxter was saying. He took a deep breath and focused on the feeling of breathing in and out. He closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the rustle of the men outside the tent, feel their impatience, feel their insecurity about the jungle around them. The wind blew softly against the side of the tent. Local conditions were cool and breezy in the middle of the moon’s night cycle.
“Now, you need to remove your filters, let the world impinge upon your mind unimpeded. Don’t interpret what is coming to you, let it happen.”
The world around Jonigan became the entirety of the tent, the air moving around him, the sound of Dr. Baxter breathing, the feeling of the floor as it pressed up against him. The smell of blood. He tried to let his impressions go. To just let it happen. It was difficult, he could feel his mind trying to put order to what he was feeling. And, then, the world snapped. Suddenly, it was as if his mind had slipped into a different plane of reality. He seemed to feel and comprehend the very entirety of his existence at that very moment.
“Ah, I see that you have found it. Good. Now we can really do something,” Dr. Baxter said, a small smile coming to her lips.
It felt, to Jonigan, as if he had somehow separated from himself. Almost like he felt when making a hyperspace translation. Somehow disconnected from reality, or at least the reality that he perceived.
“Now, you can follow me on a little journey. Backwards, away from the now. Watch carefully, what we are looking for cannot be sensed with normal eyes and ears.”
The world of the now, slowly began to change around Jonigan. It seemed as if everything was beginning to unspool before him, only in reverse. The light that had illuminated the tent quickly disappeared. He found that he could see the interior of the tent as well as if they had never left. Then came a blur of motion and the blood on the floor and around the inside of the tent was gone. A lone figure lay on the cot on the side of the tent, peacefully asleep.
“Okay, now we need to watch carefully, to see if we can spot what happened.” The old woman still knelt before him, his hands in hers. It almost felt as if her essence was pouring into him. He watched, the feeling of the now bringing the reality around him sharply into focus.
Something seemed to congeal out of the very essence of space within the tent. A humanoid figure only in basic shape and structure. Where hands should have been the arms tapered into sharp points, long and clearly meant for a wicked purpose. The shoulders looked heavy and muscular, covered with black scales that turned into a deep armored cowl that covered the head of the creature. It began to move forward toward the figure on the cot as it finished resolving into reality. Jonigan could barely make out the beastly features of its face and the large shark-like teeth that filled its mouth, as it turned toward its unknowing prey. He reared back in fear, standing quickly, the urge to get away from the creature overwhelming his body and mind. And just as it had begun, the world snapped.
Jonigan stood again, facing the old woman kneeling on the floor, the world around him filled with light and blood. He was back to the present.
“What was that?!”
“Something deadly, it would appear.” The good Doctor made to stand up from her knees. She reached up and grabbed Jonigan’s forearm to steady herself. She smiled up at the Commander in thanks for his help.
“I don’t know what to do to stop something like that. What if it comes back?”
“Oh, I’m sure there is something we can do about it. We just have to find out what it’s protecting.”
“You think that thing is protecting something?”
“Well, it is sort of obvious, don’t you think? It has too much power and is too purposeful to be just some animal. It clearly possesses some kind of technology, even if we don’t understand it. Do you know of any sp
ecies born with the abillity to just emerge out of thin air?”
“Yes, you make sense. It’s just so powerful.” Jonigan shook his head. That thing had scared him nearly to death.
An insistent beeping began coming from Jonigan’s wristcom, instantly drawing his attention. He reached over and touched the call answer button. For a moment static filled the air and then the voice of Lieutenant Anderson could be barely heard.
“Comman...onigan...spond…mander Jon...the Resolu...is..attack...Pax...find ...sive..position and wait...out.”
Jonigan looked up into the serene eyes of Dr. Helen Baxter. She smiled.
“Looks like we have company. I think we better get going and find out what’s in that pyramid. I’m fairly certain our lives will depend on it,” she said.
“I agree, we need to get everyone out of camp and down the hill. Who knows if that creature is going to return or if the Pax are going to be able to land a force down here. Either way, I want to get everyone together somewhere we can defend ourselves.”
With his hand resting firmly on his sidearm, Jonigan watched impatiently as the members of the expedition moved through the gap and down toward the pyramid below. They carried what equipment they could, no one knew what they would find once they arrived. Was there even an entrance?
Naval personnel watched from the hills and along the trail, guarding the procession in case the creature returned or a Pax landing craft arrived unexpectedly. Several had returned to the shuttlecraft that had carried the expedition to the surface and were, even now, trying to move them out of sight and into the jungle. They were not equipped with the weaponry to deal with a Pax incursion and flying them back to the Resolution was no longer an option.
“Okay, let’s wrap it up here and get down there and find out if the doctor has found an entrance.”
The group of remaining naval personnel double timed it down the hill and to the vegetation covered pyramid. Members of the expedition were setting up scanning equipment only a few meters from the base of the structure. Several of the team members had also been sent to scout the perimeter and see if a way in could be found. The Doctor and some of her personnel were standing off to the side and looking at the readouts coming from a large display on a table that had been set up.
“It looks like there is a cavity running underneath and around the pyramid.” One of the techs standing next to the doctor explained as he pointed out the details on the screen. “I think we can cut away some of the vegetation and we’ll be able to get under. It looks like, from the scan, that we’ll probably find the entrance down below.”
“I think so, too,” Dr. Baxter responded, her hand stroked her chin in concentration. She looked up and saw Commander Jonigan approaching.
“Ahh, Commander, we’ve found something. Do you think you could get some of your men to begin clearing the vegetation along the pyramid?” She pointed to the base of the pyramid.
“Certainly.” He turned and nodded to Gunnery Sergeant Thorsen who had witnessed the exchange. He, in turn, waved over a few of the guards that had been with him and trotted to where the Doctor had been pointing.
As part of the standard gear issued to the naval landing personnel, each of the men had been given a machete with a monofilament edge. It only took them a few moments to clear an opening between the bottom of the pyramid and the downsloping ground.
Jonigan and the good Dr. Baxter were waiting only a few meters back from the soldiers as they worked. When the soldiers finished their work Jonigan pulled a flashlight from his belt and pointed it down into the darkness. A few small creatures scattered before the light. He could see that the ground sloped down and underneath the edge of the pyramid leaving a gap of about two meters. Plenty of space for a man to walk down below.
He could also see something else, something that caused him to raise his arm and stop the doctor from moving down into the gap. At the very edge of the beam cast by his light he could just make out a skull, long and triangular in shape. The cold empty eye sockets stared blindly out at him.
“Hold on,” Jonigan said. He slid down the scree that had gathered along the edge under the pyramid and brought the skull into better view.
“This isn’t good.”
“No, sir.” Thorsen had dropped down behind his superior, hoping to keep him from doing something dangerous without him.
“Pax,” Jonigan stated simply.
Dr. Baxter held onto the hand of one of her assistants as she also slid down to take a look at what the Commander had found.
“Well, Commander, it looks like we aren’t the first to visit.”
“He doesn’t look too happy about his visit.”
The Doctor laughed. “No, I think not. I hope you are talking about the large hole that he appears to have in the upper part of his skull?”
“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Jonigan replied.
Jonigan picked up the alien skull and studied it carefully. There didn’t appear to be any other skeletal remains within the circle of light being created by the gathering members of the expedition.
“I need to inform the Captain of what we’ve found.” He bent his arm so he could see the display of his wristcom. He tapped a few buttons on the display. “I’m not even getting a signal. How about you, Gunny?” Jonigan looked up at Thorsen, who shook his head.
He pointed his light further into the depths of the recess below the pyramid, its great weight an overbearing presence above him. He quickly found a wall about twenty-five meters from where he and the others were standing. For the most part, it looked very solid and supportive. At the place where he expected the midpoint of the wall to be, it all disappeared into nothingness. His flashlight couldn’t penetrate the depths.
“Do you think they wanted us to find a way in?” Jonigan asked, almost to himself.
“Yes, Commander, I know how to find it.”
“You do?” He gave the doctor a look as she strode off into the darkness, his surprise at her declaration clearly evident.
“Are you coming?” She glanced back and asked.
Dr. Baxter strode confidently forward to the central part of the wall. As they approached, the wall came into better focus. It stretched off into the darkness in both directions, a clear barrier to the group’s progress. When she arrived, Jonigan trailing slightly behind her, she stretched out her hand and laid it on the stone before her. Jonigan watched her carefully as strangeness seemed to creep at the edge of his perception.
After a few moments, a light pulsed underneath the doctor’s palm, it slowly spread out along the stone surface, roughly in the shape of a hand, accelerating as it moved outward. Left behind on the surface just above Dr. Baxter’s hand, strange symbols stood out, aglow with whatever had activated them. The good Doctor turned back to face Jonigan and gave him a smile. “See, young man, this isn’t my first party. Come along.”
Jonigan stared for a few moments as the Doctor disappeared into the dark entryway. He waved Thorsen to come over and join him. “We better get the rest of the expedition down here. I don’t think we are going to have much time, we need to get some defensive positions set up here at the entrance, create a choke point if we can. Hopefully, we won’t need it.”
He jogged in through the entrance, trailing after the others who had followed the Doctor. A wall immediately blocked him from moving straight forward, instead he had to choose to move either to the right or left. After a few steps, he came around the corner. He immediately ran into the backs of those standing in the middle of the large door on the other side. It opened into a wide and unending blackness. The flashlights of those who stood in the front penetrated into the black depths for several feet and then nothing. No wall, no ceiling, nothing as far as the light could penetrate.
The indefatigable Dr. Helen Baxter stood firmly at the forefront of those who had passed through the entrance. Several of them were making emphatic gestures in her direction as she calmly surveyed what was before her.
“Believe it or not, Commander, one
gets used to the darkness in this profession. This place reminds me very much of some of the other Elder remnants I’ve visited.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Doctor. You’ve definitely shown me a few things.” He paused for a moment. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Well, young man, I’m fairly certain that this is like many such rooms that I’ve come across in my time and we just need to ascertain its dimensions. It may look like it goes on forever, but its just the darkness.”
“Oh, I’m not scared of the darkness, ma’am, its what might be lurking out there, waiting for us to stumble over it.”
“I think, my boy, that we’ll solve that problem if we can get to the center of this building. I wouldn’t be surprised to find what we need there. Let’s get some people with flashlights looking around. Some of my people have been in places like this before and they know what to look for. Maybe you can get some of your soldiers with guns to go with them and make them feel better about walking around in the dark.”
Jonigan laughed softly to himself as he listened to the old woman and then realized he was holding his own sidearm tightly in his right hand. The darkness was oppressive, even for someone who had made a career of flying through the great depths of it.
Instructions were given and quickly a large portion of the expedition had been divided and sent to explore the extent of the surrounding edifice. Each group was escorted by a pair of naval personnel.
Minutes and then hours began to pass as the members of the expedition explored. Jonigan, the Doctor and several of her assistants remained at the entrance to the great chamber, gathering the data as it came in from each group, painting a picture of the spaces around them. There was a vast complex of passageways and rooms buried underneath the surface of the moon. As of yet, nothing to indicate the purpose of the facility had been found.
As Jonigan waited, he could feel the urgency of earlier events leaching out from within him. It was getting cold. Then the shooting began.
